subject: Watch Bill Cunningham New York movie 2011 online [print this page] Watch Bill Cunningham New York movie 2011 online
Cunningham has been working on the column a collection of candid photographs of famous and nonfamous fashion icons which predates any style blog out there for decades, and the genial octogenarian shows no signs of stopping.
Aside from telling Bill's story how he grew up in a working class family, was drafted in the Korean war, started designing hats before he sort of accidentally became a photojournalist/anthropologist, how he moonlighted during his many years at the Times for the original Details magazine it's the images in the film that work incredibly well.
There's Bill in his blue construction worker jacket (he buys them on the cheap so he doesn't feel guilty about messing them up) shooting the shit with Michael Kors. There's Anna Wintour posing on the street for him, and there she is saying that the fashion world gets dressed in the morning for him. There's Bill in a reflective orange vest riding his bike at night on the busy streets of midtown Manhattan, all eight decades of him gray and white and skinny, being honked at by taxis, and holy hell, why do those youngsters drive so fast?
There you are, cringing for his life, not yours, because this deceivingly frail-looking man is draped in a garbage-bag poncho with the rips and holes taped up and he's running up and down the rainy crosswalks, amidst heavy foot traffic, wiggling around and snapping photographs like some sort of well-intentioned paparazzo. And while you don't want him to get hurt, you also question your own stamina.
And then you learn this is a man who was so deeply involved with his work he admits he has never had a romantic relationship, and you learn he's spent most of his life living in
Carnegie Hall in a tiny apartment filled with filing cabinets almost floor to ceiling, with just a bed on the floor, and no private bathroom (it's in the hallway), and that's he's probably going to get kicked out soon. He'll be okay: he just wants to get outside and keep shooting. But if you haven't felt righteous indignation for a while, this flick will cure that.
